Give me an example where you felt triumphant and demoralized at the same time. Nothing comes to mind? Here is one of mine: two days ago I drove myself to Sauvie Island for the first time in 5 months, taking the first solo photography walk there since my surgeries. Feeling triumphant that I dared (and was able to,) demoralized because I could only get so far and at a snail’s pace. Also, the heavy camera was shaky in my hands, as evidenced by the out-of-focus quality of some of the birds, but hey, I did it.
I eagerly wanted to visit the ospreys during their nesting season. Part of that motivation came from the need for appropriate photos for today’s topic, the work of a photographer who turned from photojournalism documenting armed conflicts to working extensively on environmental issues. Christian Åslund, an award winning Swedish photographer, often focuses on the High Arctic and the Arctic Ocean, in need of saving from the oil industry and commercial overfishing, forces of destruction of the natural balance, raptors included. He, some years back, even joined an expedition skiing to the Northpole to call for a global sanctuary of the region. If he can ski at the North Pole, I can toddle along Rentselaer Road, observing the nests…..
The link to the photographer’s name above leads to some magnificent photos of the ocean ice. I want to focus, though, on his documentation of the changes of a particular range of glaciers. As I have mentioned before, people are both hesitant or unwilling in acknowledging what is going on around us, particularly if t seems to occur in a far away future, with the loophole that science might rescue us in the intervening years.
Looking at something concretely, at a change that has happened and is in the process of continuing to happen might be a wake-up call that is harder to ignore. Visual evidence is sometimes more effective than abstract ideas. Aslund was able to find archival photos from 100 years ago of Svalbard Glaciers courtesy of the Norwegian Polar Institute. He then set out to photograph the very landscape from identical angles, ingeniously adding a modern human figure into the mix when the old photo contained one as well – making the interaction between nature and human salient.
The series can be found on his website, which is, as websites go, remarkable for the wealth of information and quality of the design. With easily accessed links you can get written factual information, pause the slides and enlarge them, as well as find different topics at a glance. Might not matter to you, but for someone who is interested in photography websites this one scored big. Ok, I digress.
“The archipelago of Svalbard, a land of ice and polar bears, is found midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Its capital Longyearbyen on the main island of Spitsbergen is the world’s most northerly city, some 800 miles inside the Arctic Circle.
Svalbard is also home to some of the Earth’s northernmost glaciers, which bury most of the archipelago’s surface under no less than 200 metres of thick ice. Taken together, Svalbard glaciers represent 6% of the worldwide glacier area outside the large ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.”
The danger of these glaciers melting completely is not just one of raising water levels of oceans and feeding into the cyclic nature of global warming. Freed from ice, these areas will be much more accessible to both mining industries and tourism, further disturbing excessively shrinking habitat of endangered species, in this particular case making it harder for polar bears to survive.
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Which brings us back to the Oregon ospreys and, for once, good news. Their population rapidly declined due to deforestation and pesticide use until about the 1970s. They have recovered, though, partly because they have found nesting sites on power poles and river channel markers, helped along by utility companied and the U.S. Coast Guard that see to the safety of the sites, or take armloads of previous used nesting materials to sites that they build near by. (See below.)
Ospreys are migrating birds, going to warmer climes in Mexico and South America for 6 months of the year. The couples separate during that trek, but then reunite upon return during March in Oregon, with great fidelity to the old nesting site which they rebuild. The chicks usually hatch mid-May, flying in July, and then depart for the wintering grounds in mid-August. (I saw one nest with two chicks on my walk, and another one just being built – timing obviously varies.) The female is in constant contact with the chicks for the first month or so, then perches nearby and occasional hunts, something the male did all along. About 375 pounds of fish are needed to sustain an osprey couple with two chicks in the nest – note what that implies for needing clean rivers with healthy fish populations….
If only we could do for the polar wildlife what we were able to do for the raptors here. Work like Aslund’s might help, if enough people were to see it.
Here’s to the next generation of preservationists, learning early!
I don’t remember how large the boat was, or if we were the only people in it, slowly moving forward with a quietly muttering outboard motor. I do remember that I was cold despite a heavy Norwegian wool sweater and a winter jacket, as I was for so many stretches of my 6th months-long South-American trek. Hi-tech, low-weight warmth garments had not yet entered my wardrobe, or backpack, respectively. Cold was soon forgotten, though, when contemplating the color – never seen such blue before, water and sky alike – and expanse of Lake Titicaca, located at 3,812 m (12,507 ft) at the border between Peru and Bolivia. In it, about 9 miles from shore, floated precarious looking islands made of reeds, home to the Uros people who, legend has it, migrated there from the Amazon, and needed to protect themselves from the anti-immigrant shore dwellers…. not a single new story under the sun.
I don’t have photos from South America, so here’s another view of skies in high altitude country, New Mexico.
My trip was in 1975, before the Shining Path revolutionary movement made travel in those regions too dangerous. The organization has been all but eradicated by now, with the incarceration of its leaders and the absence of populist support in light of the many, indiscriminate violent actions. The lake, it turns out, is also in decline, having lost almost a meter (!) in water depth due to climate change and glacier evaporation. A major storm in 1986 destroyed the floating islands of the Uros. They rebuilt closer to shore, an archipelago of about 60 small islets entirely made from reeds, on the Peruvian side as of ten years ago. These days they are a major tourist attraction that provides the Uros with income supplementing their fishing and hunting.
Images from WIkipedia
The memories were triggered by todays’ real topic: the work of an increasing number of scholars who aim to integrate indigenous insights and methods into environmental planning, Julia Watson one of the most prominent among them. Watson teaches urban design at Columbia and Harvard University, specializing in the living landscape, eco-technologies, work located at the intersection of anthropology, ecology and innovation.
Her bookLo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism explores how lesser-known local technologies and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) all aim at a symbiotic design process for large scale environmental constructions that benefit both the people and the ecological systems they are part of. She brings in examples from all over the world – divided into sections of mountains, forests, deserts and wetlands – where sustainable, resilient, nature-based technology provides anything but “primitive” solution to environmental challenges, floods and fires included. Here is a terrific interview that captures her approach in detail. And, of course, the floating islands of Lake Titicaca were one of the examples of the hundreds she observed and described after 20 years of traveling the world to record indigenous practices.
Not to be a spoil sport, I do have a question, though. A focus on working with the environment, rather than dominating and changing it, seems imminently attractive. A focus on local wisdom regarding what works in a specific environment, same. But what about global changes that have already affected local ecologies? How do you scale up from what worked for small populations when they count in the millions, these days? How do you rely on traditional methods of, say, controlled burning when borders of wilderness to population have shifted, the latter encroaching ever closer? How do you work traditional agricultural practices when the climate as a whole has changed, affecting seasons, or when the insect populations that you relied on during a particular time of plant development have declined due to pesticide use by your neighbors?
The interaction between global havoc and local traditional principles is one that cannot be ignored. That said, any approach that tries to translate the feasible parts of traditional symbiotic relationships with nature into something applicable for modern scale deserves nothing but our support. There is certainly more knowledge out there than we have been taught or have even been aware of – let’s hope its proponents find open ears in a world dominated by hi-tech instead.
Music comes to us from Peru – traditional reed instruments included. Give the album some time to grow on you.
I should have gone there earlier. When I meandered along the Esplanade last week the peak of the cherry blossoms was clearly a thing of the past. But there were still enough pretty ones left to be fodder for the camera.
There were also many other stimulating sights that reassured me that I was still living in a world populated by other human beings. It was my first outing into the city proper since the beginning of January. Clad in jeans and down coat I was clearly not appraised of the appropriate dress code.
You might have heard that some of the Japanese cities famous for their cherry blossom festivals experienced the earliest peak ever since measurements began 1200 years ago. Scientists blame the warming spring temperatures due to climate change. What is worse, though, and less reported, are the delayed blooms in some areas of the country. These happen when winter, not spring, temperatures are too warm. The average cherry tree variety needs a full month of cold weather (below 41º F/5º C) in order to bloom properly.
There are about 600 or so variety of cherry trees. These days 70% of all Japanese cherry trees are of the Yoshino variety, which blooms profusely and not too long after it has been planted. These are also the trees you see in Washington, DC and in Portland, gifts given by Japan. Unfortunately they are quite susceptible to climate issues and disease. It is quite important to start to diversify varieties or we run out of cherry blossoms altogether in no time. Think of what that would do to tourism in Japan, or cities like Macon, GA which attract thousands for their annual celebration – they have more than 300.000 Yoshino trees, far more than the number in Washington, DC. Never mind the issue of pollinators being deprived of an important food source, endangering the food chain for all of us….
Then again, you would never have to stand again in a line like this.
That’s what it looked like pre-Covid times in the Amsterdam Bos, which is one of Holland’s most famous cherry tree arbors in the middle of a forest. 400 trees were donated by Japan in the year 2000, and each one of them was named, half Dutch and half Japanese female names. Alas, I could not find a single source to identify those names…. The municipality of Amstelveen, home to about 1700 Japanese ex-pats, organizes the festival.
And if you miss out on the real thing, this or any year where things change out of the blue, you can always create your very own blossoming cherry tree. Just requires a crane and a lot of blocks….881,470 to be precise. You can see this and numerous festivals if you travel to Japan in 2022 – here is you handy travel guide should the borders be reopened by then.
Or you can just walk down the Esplanade and enjoy what’s left of the bounty, strewn into nooks and crannies, hidden beauty wherever you look.
Here is the traditional Japanese version of Sakura, Sakura the cherry blossom song.
Forgive me if my mind wanders even more than usual these days. I used to think of my habit of forming strange and far-reaching connections as an asset; these days associations come unbidden, feeling more intrusive than clever or surprising. Be that as it may, here is the most recent chain of thought, originally triggered by a day of darkness.
Literal darkness, that is, as you can discern yourself when realizing today’s photographs were taken at noon, overlooking San Francisco Bay, some days ago. A darkness likely to have enshrouded the Oregon landscape as well, a consequence of the devastating fires.
It brought to mind Lord Byron’s poem, Darkness, attached below. It was written in the summer of 1816 after the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Mount Tambora in 1815. The eruption killed more than 10,000 people, while an additional 30,000 across the world perished from the crop failures, famine, and disease that resulted from extreme weather triggered by the explosion. Volcanic ash blotted out much of the sun for more than a year, having people believe that the sun was dying. The average global temperature dropped by a whole degree. The poem reads like a prescient description of both climate change and/or the more figurative darkness that surrounds us in these days of the demise of our democracy.
Darkness
BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)
I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light: And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings—the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum’d, And men were gather’d round their blazing homes To look once more into each other’s face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the world contain’d; Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks Extinguish’d with a crash—and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil’d; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and look’d up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnash’d their teeth and howl’d: the wild birds shriek’d And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl’d And twin’d themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food. And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again: a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; All earth was but one thought—and that was death Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Of famine fed upon all entrails—men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devour’d, Even dogs assail’d their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famish’d men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead Lur’d their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answer’d not with a caress—he died. The crowd was famish’d by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies: they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place Where had been heap’d a mass of holy things For an unholy usage; they rak’d up, And shivering scrap’d with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Each other’s aspects—saw, and shriek’d, and died— Even of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, The populous and the powerful was a lump, Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless— A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirr’d within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp’d They slept on the abyss without a surge— The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The moon, their mistress, had expir’d before; The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need Of aid from them—She was the Universe.
The poem’s apocalyptic tone was not just caused by the strange, dark weather. Byron himself was at one of the lowest points in his life, his reputation shattered by revelations of his incestuous relationship with a half-sister, and public disclosure of his marital cruelty (he was sexually and emotionally abusive to his partners, men and women alike, throughout his life time.) He left England in disgrace at age 28, never to return again, wracked by debt and alcoholism. He died in exile from illness contracted through exposure to the elements. Notorious to the last, and yet he was a shining star in romantic poetry’s firmament, of bright intensity or intense brightness, your pick.
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Notorious is also a term for me, for many of us, prominently associated with RBG. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, may her memory be a blessing, died last week on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, a bright sun extinguish’d. For all she fought for, trailblazed, conquered, for a life lived with integrity at the opposite end of the spectrum from Byron, she, too was not granted a peaceful death. The very knowledge that her passing would be exploited for yet another power grab by those who care for nothing but, must have weighed heavily for someone ready to be freed from the ravages of cancer and yet clinging to life in hopes of gaining time towards the election. It was not to be.
We must mourn her, and then tend to her legacy by whatever means we have. I find it heartening to be reminded that this is not on individuals alone. If you reread the poem above, look at the lines that signal connectedness – “And men were gather’d round their blazing homes To look once more into each other’s face” – we are in this together. Or the lines that point to a future, even if shrouded by fear – “A fearful hope was all the world contain’d.” And then various descriptions of how people, other than those giving up, acted on that hope.
The poem does not end happily, but rather in desolation. That is a choice, but one the poet himself did ultimately not give into. Byron dreamt of revolutionary changes for the world and actually fought for social justice in his few years in government service. So did Bader Ginsburg in her reckonings with the powers that be. Here are Byron’s words from Canto IV of Childe Harold:
But I have lived, and have not lived in vain: My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, And my frame perish even in conquering pain, But there is that within me which shall tire Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire [.]
For the rest of us: let’s tire, if not torture or time, then at least the current President and Senate hellbent on filling a Supreme Court Seat that does not belong to them. Make them weary with an onslaught of action. Exhaust them, weaken them by all means in our repertory. Unless darkness becomes the universe.
Music today uses the words from another Byron poem, She walks in Beauty. Rest in power, RBG. You have not lived in vain.
Happy sloths. Happy storks. Happy Cows. Unhappy whales. At least some of them. (And yes, you only get the jokes if you regularly read the blog when it resorts to the to be continued mode….)
This week was devoted to looking more closely at nature and in particular at migration. Whales, of course, are among the most familiar species doing an annual trek, and we would be remiss not to mention some of the scientific findings around their existence. (I wrote a bit about them last year here.)
So why describe them as unhappy? Well, several of their kind are severely endangered, and not just because the whale oil industry of yore pursued them to the brink of extinction.
Take right wales, for example, who once roamed the Atlantic and whose numbers are dwindling. In the last 10 years the number of calves born to them have dropped tremendously. And when a calf is born it rests for some 5 months with the mother at the ocean’s surface – completely at risk to be stricken by shipping vessels, or caught in fishing gear. Mariners cannot detect them with listening devices, to avoid collisions, because the instinctual behavior is NOT to make sounds, to avoid natural predators. Between declining fertility and rising accident mortality, they are at risk of extinction. Only 400-500 of them remain in the Atlantic and fewer than 100 in the Pacific.
Sei whales? Endangered. Blue whales? Endangered. Sperm and fin whales? Vulnerable. Any tidbits that can distract us from getting too depressed by these facts? The tongue of a blue whale alone is equivalent to the weight of an elephant! They migrate from the polar and subarctic regions in summer to the tropical and subtropical waters in winter, some of them are over 150 years old – which means they actually were alive during commercial whaling times and might remember being hunted by whalers. Autopsies on dead sperm whales revealed up to 65 pounds of plastic in their stomachs, leading to blockage and causing lethal peritonitis. Ok, not helping with the depression, is it.
I can do better. Humpback whales are thriving after coming close to extinction! Scientists stress the role of proper management for the recovery (details here) but also warn that the food for which whales and so many other marine animals compete, namely Krill, is strongly affected by global warming, getting increasingly scarce. If more whales feed on it, there’s less to go around for the ones lower in the food chain….
Ok, I give up. All these facts are part of why I currently have turned to working on an art series that uses (partial) 17th century dutch paintings of traditional whaling expeditions, combined with my photographs of contemporary Northwest landscapes and birds, as an example of the consequences of ruthless environmental exploitation to both nature and humankind. Today’s images are the latest examples in that endeavor, I had, after all, promised some art as well.
And here is a tone poem by Alan Hovhaness performed by the Seattle symphony.
I have been thinking a lot about the Columbia river in the context of writing about the Maryhill art project of wood prints representing different sections of the Gorge.
One of the paramount issues around the river has to do with the erection of dams – who do they serve, what do they accomplish and what is the cost to both, population and nature. And if and when they should be taken down.
Here is an in-depth, thoroughly researched and argued article on the issues, that was published this week in the Seattle Times. It spells out in great detail the questions of politics, ecology, historical goals and concerns (a sell-out of Native American culture and tribal rights included), and those of the future, a future defined by climate change and new laws that try to restrict fossil fuel expenditures. And, of course, economics. Selling electricity as far South as California. Really a worthwhile read if you are devoted to the North West and thinking about how we an be better stewards to the environment.
The Bonneville Power Administration was founded in the 1930s as a governmental effort to rebuilt after the devastating crisis of capitalism and to stimulate economic development. The construction of the dams provided jobs for large number of peoples, and guaranteed cost-based energy prices (which was seen as an intervention in the market place akin to socialism….)Rarely was it mentioned that the power generated by the dams was harnessed for aluminum production – an ingredient desired for WW II fighter planes and plutonium reactors at the Hanford site in WA.
All in all there are 31 federal dams in the region and they have one thing in common: The Bonneville Power Act, signed by Roosevelt; it negatively affected the Native American Populations whose culture had developed around the Columbia River. In addition to delegating different tasks to different groups, the Act also gave the facility administrator (under the control of the United States Department of Energy) the authority to take any steps necessary to complete the dam and ensure its efficiency, “by purchase, lease, condemnation, or donation” (United States BPA, 32). The decisions regarding the disposal of personal property rested solely on the judgement of the dam’s administrator. This clause of the Act made the destruction of forty traditional Indian fishing sites as well as homes and towns possible. (Source here) And the dams killed the fish, precursor to other ecological disasters.
Inside the Bonneville Dam Visitor Center
The devastation to fish runs was lasting and eventually acknowledged; a Bill required the BPA to invest heavily in fish restoration, which has not worked enough for the wild life to be lifted out of the Endangered Species Act. It did, however, seriously contribute to accumulate debt (the other burden being repair and replacement of all the equipment that has long overstayed its design lifetime.)
Fish Ladder
The BPA now runs about $15 billion in debt, and increased cost for the consumer (our rates have increased by 30%), or decreased investment in fish health, (which undermines treaties with the Native American tribes) is not going to make much of a difference – and the BPA’s contracts with energy consumers runs out in 2028. Altogether a dire picture, even before you take climate change into account.
Here is the 1949 BPA public opinion piece with music by Woody Guthrie in 2 parts.
Yesterday’s Memorial Day commemorations, honoring those who lost their lives fighting wars, happened in the context of this warning:
“It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life. You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen. Some of you will join the fight against radical Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of you will join the fight on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific, where North Korea continues to threaten the peace, and an increasingly militarized China challenges our presence in the region. Some of you will join the fight in Europe, where an aggressive Russia seeks to redraw international boundaries by force. And some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere.”
This from the Vice president of the US, Mike Pence, who addressed young men and women who have an obligation to serve for the next 5 years, with an additional 3 years of being in the reserve. That is a time span of 8 years within which he predicts active warfare, potentially in this hemisphere…. The clouds of war are gathering.
View East from the Esplanade 5/25/2019
Maybe he read the scientific reports and takes them seriously, when the rest of the administration is actively undermining any acknowledgement of the consequences of climate change.
New research has shown a causal linkage between climate change, conflict and migration. The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) has provided data as of January of this year that confirms the speculation about the relationship between climate change and armed upheaval with hard numbers (Syria included.)
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Time to plan yet another war memorial? In the small town of Marseille, IL, a group of civic-minded bikers fund-raised and built a memorial for those killed in ongoing wars. From the website:
On June 19th, 2004 a Granite Memorial Wall was dedicated commemorating the servicemen and women who have lost their lives in worldwide conflicts since 1979. The project was conceived by Tony Cutrano and Jerry Kuczera, built with donated material and labor and is the first of its kind in the History of the United States to give honor to our fallen by name while a conflict is ongoing. It took 20 years to Honor our Vietnam Veterans. Almost 60 years to Honor our World War II Veterans. The names on the wall represent our fallen heroes from such diverse locations as Panama, Lebanon, the Balkans, Grenada, Somalia, Haiti, USS Cole, USS Stark, Terrorist attacks in Italy, Greece, Scotland, and the current conflicts in the Middle East.
Here is a report by a father of a soldier about a visit of this memorial. I found it intensely moving.
Photographs today are all IPhone snaps from a single stroll along the Esplanade this weekend. The dysphoric content seems a fitting background for musings on the losses, pain, futility and causes of war.
Music are some choices across the board that helps us to remember.
In no particular order I am going to applaud movements carried by young people this year. Youth has always had a major role in fostering societal change – think the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam Protests, the Arab Spring, Tiananmen Square. Movements that try to tackle the big issues of our time, from climate catastrophe, environmental destruction to the danger from the ubiquity of automatic and other weapons are carried by American youth here and now as well.
There is Sunrise – a movement to stop climate change. These are kids, basically, pursuing a #greennewdeal.
Then there are the Parkland survivors, who just yesterday received the International Kids’ Peace Award presented by Bishop Desmond Tutu for their organizing the March for our Lives to prevent further gun violence. Independent of how effective they are in fighting gun producers and sellers, their efforts to organize the youth vote have been phenomenally successful. Youth vote in early voting alone surge by 188% over the 2014 midterms.
Then there are the many activists (not all of them young, as it turns out) who defend our environment against industrial assault, with leadership from many indigenous people, and with courageous lawyers by their side. I am thinking, as just on example, of the Minnesota Valve turners, a group of people willing to go to prison in order to protest pipelines and all the threats that resource extraction entail for our climate.
Above is a link to an article that outlines what people have tried to do and what defenses they are trying to use in court regarding their actions: among them the necessity defense, which states that when all legal and political means are exhausted it might be necessary to engage in non-violent illegal action to prevent irreversible harm.
Below is the trailer, close to my heart, to a documentary in the making – Necessity – that follows some of these activists and the folks from the Climate Defense Project who provide legal support.
To learn more about the film and how it can be supported you can go to the website.
Photographs shown today were taken at various industrial sites and at PSU 2 weeks back when Kelsey Skaggs, mentioned in the article above, gave a talk about the CDP (I did a bit of production photography for the documentary.)
Much gratitude, then, for all the folks out there in the front lines, taking enormous risks and exposing themselves to attacks in order to do what’s right. They instill a sense of hope, plain and simple, which is a lot after what 2018 has provided so far….
With Thanksgiving coming up, I will devote this week’s musings to things I am grateful for.
As so often, that puts nature in first place, particularly the nature that surrounds me where I live, a place of astounding beauty.
That is true even if – or perhaps particularly if – you can’t see it very well, since in November it is often shrouded in mist.
I now know to call it mist, since I looked up the difference in definition between mist and fog: they both are ‘Obscurity in the surface layers of the atmosphere, which is caused by a suspension of water droplets’. They differ, though, in the range of visibility: By international agreement (particularly for aviation purposes) fog is the name given to resulting visibility less than 1 km, however the term in forecasts for the public generally relates to visibility less than 180 m. Mist simply has a lower density of water droplets and you can look farther than 1000 meters.
And in case you also want to know the meaning of haze, another visual phenomenon: it is a suspension of extremely small, dry particles in the air (not water droplets) which are invisible to the naked eye, but sufficient to give the air an opalescent appearance.
From the article: The precise biological mechanics of how people develop chronic lung problems, while not fully flushed out, lie at the intersection of two seemingly disparate scientific areas, immunology and environmental study.
Immune cells that respond to foreign particles douse the particles with toxins, among other tactics, to destroy them. But an intense event like extremely poor air quality can prompt such a strong immune response that it can throw the body’s delicate network out of balance, particularly in people predisposed to asthma or allergy.A vicious cycle can begin where each time a person experiences even small, related stress — like smoke — the body overreacts, leading to constricted air flow and intensifying the risk of heart attack and stroke for some people.
Researchers say that climate change leads to this kind of ill health through wildfire, but also through prolonged pollen seasons, dust storms and other events that affect air quality.“We’re setting up a tipping point in the immune system that leads to more inflammation and disease,” said Dr. Sharon Chinthrajah, a pulmonologist and allergist at Stanford, speaking of the way climate change has put increased pressure on human defenses. “California,” she added, “is being reset to a new reality.”
Grateful, then, for these election winners to tackle climate change, air and water quality, and persuading others in congress to sign on:
We can’t end the fossil fuel age without bold government policy and the active cooperation of business. But “regular people” are anything but powerless.
As a consumer, you can make a difference by reducing your carbon footprint. As a citizen, you can use your voice inside and outside the voting booth. For instance, citizens are pressing cities, universities, and pension funds to publicly declare themselves fossil-free and divest from the industry.
The number of energy cooperatives founded by people who’ve decided to take matters into their own hands is rising fast. And worldwide citizen mobilization around the Paris climate conference in December 2015 helped get the ambitious target of 1.5°C into the agreement.
What can I do?
